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The question should be: with the track record of wild debt countries are showing, the Twitter leaked mails shpwing political control behind and the raise in tax

The question should be: with the track record of wild debt countries are showing, the Twitter leaked mails shpwing political control behind and the raise in taxes, what makes you think they will do something good? Besides that: why should I put my effort at the management of people I do not trust so that they do what they deem appropriate without paying for their mistakes? Am I his slave or something?

arcticbull 4y ago
> Besides that: why should I put my effort at the management of people I do not trust so that they do what they deem appropriate without paying for their mistakes? Am I his slave or something? Generally you are either directly or indirectly their elector so they are in fact accountable to you. But yeah, that's kind of how democracy works. I'm personally only supportive of privacy-preserving CBDCs like the Rohan Grey e-cash proposal.
- TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
  The Twitter files had a lot to say to that response too...
rhaway84773 4y ago
Because in the context of India the digitization of money and centralization of data has been a massive boon to the people. For example, with the creation of a national identification number (which, thanks to the initial poor security measures has already been hacked), government welfare schemes which involved the distribution of money to people now actually results in the poor benefitting from them, since the money gets deposited in their bank accounts directly. In the past over 80-90% of the money would be stolen by intermediaries. This is entirely the result of the creation of a massive identity database which by any angle is a security nightmare. Further, the digitization of money has led to tremendous benefits to the population. Not having to carry around cash greatly reduces the risks of loss or theft. A lot of abuse faced by vendors in the unofficial sector (which is the bulk of the economy) has also reduced because a customer promising to pay cash later because they wouldn’t have it on them, and then either “forgetting” to do so, or delaying it and effectively getting an interest free loan from people who were least able to afford it, is something that has reduced dramatically because the vendor can demand the customer pay them directly using any of the digital means whose receipt they will get confirmation of instantly. Digital currency has also led to a reduction in fraud and claims of fraud. If a vendor sends a product to a customer with a delivery person, for example, in the past they’d bring cash. This opened up a lot of opportunity for abuse against the largely powerless delivery person where either the customer would not pay enough, and the vendor would blame the delivery person for stealing the money, etc. But now, that simply doesn’t come into play. The customer pays the vendor directly and the vendor sends the delivery person a confirmation and they hand over the product to the customer. A whole class of exploitation tactics have basically been eliminated.
- germandiago 4y ago
  I get your point and things are nuanced depending on the situation. But the amount of control this tracking can create is potentially evil. We have to be careful with this. I'd rather work for less and keep control than doing this. But what this is going to generate is massive govt. control. Worse than before. Not telling about India specifics though.
  - xwolfi 4y ago
    But, India is so far behind, it may need a little bit of "evil" for a little while to clean up all the layers of intermediary corruption before getting better. It's already awful to live there for a large part of the population, and they have so little, that the government really has no use tracking them: yes, they re starving, going to work for $5 a month, and sleeping... like, okay they knew that already, maybe having some sort of better grasp on the currency flow could help direct it better. "Working for less" in India is not the same as in California, just yet.
    - germandiago 4y ago
      At the end there is no replacement for responsible people. It is just a matter that with great power comes great responsibility. I would not bet my safety on more govt. control. Of course my situation is different from many of those people. At the same time, promoting long-term govt. and state dependence is, IMHO, the wrong choice. As a temporary situation it could be useful, but to promote autonomy when ppl get wealthier, not to make them depend on power.

arcticbull 4y ago

> Besides that: why should I put my effort at the management of people I do not trust so that they do what they deem appropriate without paying for their mistakes? Am I his slave or something? Generally you are either directly or indirectly their elector so they are in fact accountable to you. But yeah, that's kind of how democracy works. I'm personally only supportive of privacy-preserving CBDCs like the Rohan Grey e-cash proposal.

TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
The Twitter files had a lot to say to that response too...

rhaway84773 4y ago

Because in the context of India the digitization of money and centralization of data has been a massive boon to the people. For example, with the creation of a national identification number (which, thanks to the initial poor security measures has already been hacked), government welfare schemes which involved the distribution of money to people now actually results in the poor benefitting from them, since the money gets deposited in their bank accounts directly. In the past over 80-90% of the money would be stolen by intermediaries. This is entirely the result of the creation of a massive identity database which by any angle is a security nightmare. Further, the digitization of money has led to tremendous benefits to the population. Not having to carry around cash greatly reduces the risks of loss or theft. A lot of abuse faced by vendors in the unofficial sector (which is the bulk of the economy) has also reduced because a customer promising to pay cash later because they wouldn’t have it on them, and then either “forgetting” to do so, or delaying it and effectively getting an interest free loan from people who were least able to afford it, is something that has reduced dramatically because the vendor can demand the customer pay them directly using any of the digital means whose receipt they will get confirmation of instantly. Digital currency has also led to a reduction in fraud and claims of fraud. If a vendor sends a product to a customer with a delivery person, for example, in the past they’d bring cash. This opened up a lot of opportunity for abuse against the largely powerless delivery person where either the customer would not pay enough, and the vendor would blame the delivery person for stealing the money, etc. But now, that simply doesn’t come into play. The customer pays the vendor directly and the vendor sends the delivery person a confirmation and they hand over the product to the customer. A whole class of exploitation tactics have basically been eliminated.

germandiago 4y ago
I get your point and things are nuanced depending on the situation. But the amount of control this tracking can create is potentially evil. We have to be careful with this. I'd rather work for less and keep control than doing this. But what this is going to generate is massive govt. control. Worse than before. Not telling about India specifics though.
- xwolfi 4y ago
  But, India is so far behind, it may need a little bit of "evil" for a little while to clean up all the layers of intermediary corruption before getting better. It's already awful to live there for a large part of the population, and they have so little, that the government really has no use tracking them: yes, they re starving, going to work for $5 a month, and sleeping... like, okay they knew that already, maybe having some sort of better grasp on the currency flow could help direct it better. "Working for less" in India is not the same as in California, just yet.
  - germandiago 4y ago
    At the end there is no replacement for responsible people. It is just a matter that with great power comes great responsibility. I would not bet my safety on more govt. control. Of course my situation is different from many of those people. At the same time, promoting long-term govt. and state dependence is, IMHO, the wrong choice. As a temporary situation it could be useful, but to promote autonomy when ppl get wealthier, not to make them depend on power.